Wednesday, August 6, 2014

I came across something my mother wrote in 1976, which I vaguely remember. This was published in the Detroit News, then quickly forgotten. Mom must have pulled it back out, reworked, and published again in a Washington State Lit Journal just before she passed away. She was an artist of many avenues, writing being one. She died before finishing her 2nd dissertation and sadly I have very little of her work.

Here is an excerpt of The Joy of Six, the only time I said yes to a "guest" blogger.

Mom a few years after we hit the road.^^

____________________________________________________________________

Of the daily challenges presented to a single
mother of many children, none equal the energy expended in the perpetual search
for money. A woman can either work two or three jobs at minimum wage or try to
sell her body for a slightly higher scale of pay. With the relatively
sexless body of a nine-year old boy, I could not imagine anyone buying it.
Since I lacked promiscuity, education, a base of salient skills, and had six
children under ten, I began to realize I was nothing more than a target.
This particular target set out a few decades ago to find a job, become
educated, and raise those kids alone.

In a strange set of circumstances, due I am
sure, to my physically overstressed, and deliriously stretched-out mentality I
began to recognize the presence of more than just my own brood. There
began to appear on a daily basis, metaphysical personifications with actual
personalities distinguishable by their behavior. In spite of my intensified
attention to their detailed intervention into my life, I found it strangely
satisfying to attribute their unusual activities to that of my children. As
such, I began to refer to them as "The Bodies"-- Nobody, Everybody,
Somebody, and Anybody.

While learning their names and idiosyncratic
proclivities, I discovered my favorite among the strangely non-physical beings
temporarily inhabiting my home. Nobody. Nobody loved vegetables. Nobody completed assigned homework, and Nobody followed my
organizational chart. Nobody was polite and cheerful and Nobody washed dishes.
Nobody picked their clothes up from the floor and Nobody claimed ownership of
the jeans thrown there. Nobody did everything.

In spite of my reasonable and pleasant nature, I was surprised by the specious presence of
Somebody who lost my cashmere sweater, misplaced my opal ring, removed the
covers and Down pillows from my bed, and in fact was a suspect in the loss of my
favorite champagne flute, an elegant piece of crystal stem-ware I especially
loved.

I often envisioned a world in which I might own two of them, and
regularly hid money in a sacrificial sugar bowl, hoping to find a duplicate.
The bowl, the money, and the flute were simply missing. The rhetoric went
something like this:

"Somebody broke my champagne flute,
ravished my sugar bowl, and absconded with $3.42!" True, I was
somewhat hysterical, and may have been screaming, however I demanded an
immediate resolution. My eldest countered with her inherited ideological
preference for non-biased accusations:

"Why blame Somebody when it could have been
Anybody?" Daughters two and three agreed, arguing for the defense,
insisting that Everybody had access to the cupboard, and Nobody may have
actually been the culprit.

"Nobody?" I was stunned. "How
could it be Nobody?!"

It was obvious to me that Somebody took these
things because they were in fact gone, and perhaps had broken my one and only
remnant of another, more promising life. For reasons beyond my control, the children blamed
Anybody and Everybody, an outrageous accusation, however, I could imagine such an act of agrestic
behavior by unscrupulous persons such as those referred to by my
children.

Since Everybody hung out at the mall, stayed out
past midnight, smoked cigarettes, talked incessantly on the telephone, and our home became a dance hall to all their friends, I could easily be swayed. There were, in fact,
dozens of their pilfering pals whose fingerprints were wiped away daily.

The
miscreant might just be Anybody, a mysteriously vague personification, not
entirely trustworthy. At the end of the investigation, Nobody claimed
responsibility.

Since Nobody confessed and with the evidence
removed, we concluded that Nobody should be punished, however, when Nobody is
liable, nothing gets done. When I confronted them, my children assured me that
I was biased against Everybody, their favorite of the strangely iconoclastic
representational bodies residing in our home.

The clarity of my argument took a mercurial drop
as my children turned it against me and I seemed to have lost another battle.
Nobody seemed interested in the issues, and with Nobody as an ally, Everybody
seemed to be satisfied.

When our dog produced eight puppies, Nobody came
to my aid and Everybody hid behind Anybody with an alibi. In a moment of unforeseen frustration, I ran
screaming through the house in an unprofessional, albeit succinct,
non-prejudicial rant.

"I'm throwing all of these blue jeans into the
garbage!" I stated further that, "Persons owning these jeans
and those who knew the gender of that dog must be held liable for their
actions."Emboldened, I added, "People must ultimately be held
responsible for their actions."

Unbelievably, daughters, four and five engaged
in a strategy that included youth and innocence as a viable defense against
sexual knowledge.Everybody said, 'It's your fault since we didn't know this stuff."Everybody claimed a significant victory. As
for the jeans, Nobody claimed them and I laundered them in silence.

The dog, apparently a female, was named Gretchen as my children seemed to think she was a "Dutch Brady Terrier," a previously undiscovered breed, and bestowed upon her a fabricated pedigree.

Gretchen, a dog with neurotic tendencies, was terrified by the presence of the
children and slowly but surely, and unbeknownst to me, deposited all eight of
her offspring under my bed.

Also unbeknownst to me was that I was
allergic to puppy dander. Everybody blamed my extreme bronchial distress to the
fact that I worked in a bar eight hours a night, and spent eight hours a day in
a "sick" office building. Somebody suggested I stay home, clean house
and make cookies, an excellent, but thoroughly impractical solution. After much
discussion, Everybody concluded we must remove the animals. Anybody could see
the logic of it and although Nobody objected, the eldest daughter was sent out on
her bicycle with a small lunch, a whicker basket, and eight "for-free"
dogs.

I was miraculously "cured," returned to work, and food
was on the table again.

When daughter number five began bizarre episodes
of limping, and doctors suggested to me that her behavior was a production of
symptoms associated with a psychoneurosis motivated by my neglect of her, I
wondered if this child was emulating her sister who had also lost her ability
to walk for a period of time. I pulled that one around in a red wagon because
she said, "I can't walk anymore." That child was often found napping on the
sidewalk by neighbors, who actually believed her and considered me an unfit
parent.

There was also a cat. When the cat ran into a speeding car, I was in a hospital attempting to manage the operation of daughter
number four, a child who required screws in her thigh. The apparent theory for
her slipping epiphysis was associated with a congenital factor however under
sedation this child admitted to stomping aluminum cans into a kind of
"shoe-heel," and stomped on them daily for fun. The doctor who
performed the operation lost his son on the eve of the procedure due to a
broken neck achieved while performing on a trampoline. I had no money to
pay the doctor and the doctor did not bill me.

Upon our arrival back home, we placed the
crutches for my daughter at the bottom of the stairs. The cat, with a broken
leg, and also wearing a cast, sat quietly next to the rather large barrier, a
sentinel perhaps. Visiting children came with their mothers and were amazed by
the size of the crutches Tutu was given. She was a rare
"Chocolate-Point" Siamese that no doubt was expensive in the past, but had
fallen on hard times, landing on our doorstep and scooped up for play by
daughter number five who dressed her in frilly doll's clothing and pushed her
around in a broken stroller banging recklessly into the furnishings.

Tutu disappeared the same day as Gretchen, her eight
puppies, and a few turtles the kids collected from various streams.

Daughter number five then introduced a Great Dane
to our family; a dog so large I thought it must be a horse. I
noticed it while painting the kitchen ceiling tomato soup red, a color that would
work quite nicely with the yellow shag rug I had partly destroyed when attempting to create kinetic sculpture, ending in an explosive experiment. I snipped the "shag" down with
manicure scissors believing that I might manufacture a kind of "short
shag," or "golf-link-like, grassy carpet.”

The tomato-soup ceiling was almost a success but
had a lumpy appearance, the result of the hardened acrylic thrown
by the blast. While drying, pieces of pasta flung previously slipped a bit and
created a bas-relief effect, creating an Art Deco over-all arrangement, an
interesting almost sunburst look, useful perhaps in Xanadu.

One of my jobs involved the completion of
8"x10" detailed ink renderings with copy, of fashions shown in local
boutiques. I hung
the to-be-drawn clothing from the tomato-soup ceiling and often spent many
sleepless nights engaged in the project.

While working off-premises,
Somebody removed the expensive dresses leaving me with nothing to render and
nothing to return. I was sued of course, but with no tactile resources, Nobody
collected, reassuring me that of course Nobody would stand by me.

In the meantime my children were adamant the
Great Dane should live with us, an absurd notion given there was no
money for food. Happily, that animal left through the back door a few
days after he was dragged through the front.

I began to look at these creatures as welcomed accidents, distractions to our otherwise impossible
living situation. I liked them and remained positive in spite of the negative behavior I attributed to them. I also liked blaming them for unruly
behavior as this would buffer further rage toward my children's own unruly behavior. With the Great Dane gone and no further incoming pests, real issues could no longer be ignored.

“Everybody uses drugs. If anyone tells you
different, they’re lying.”

This was an ongoing, circulator argument until
daughter number one removed herself from the pharmaceutical infatuation. Nobody told her to
quit and Nobody was amazed.

Because my children were collectively against
anything I advocated, I used whatever measures were available to me to police
their behavior, including constant juvenile hall threats.

Everybody was angry, no one was speaking then Somebody threw a
basketball against a dining room canvas; strange behavior I found both
interesting and annoying. A commissioned painting requires a specific result,
unlike creative adventures, which allow for spontaneous reactions, say
serendipity. In the unlikely event of a sponsor spending money on a painting
created absent that sponsor's particular investment in the ideation, most
artists are unpaid. That Somebody could enhance my work with this basketball is
no more unrealistic than my own expectations.

The big sale of the painting provided an
unexpected opportunity to move three thousand miles from the strange and often
misunderstood neighborhood in which we lived. The patron, also the person
I promised to marry, offered us an opportunity. Since we were about to be
evicted, few decisions were made in less time.

Not only did I sell every piece of furniture not
nailed to the floor, I sold furnishings actually nailed to the floor, including
every appliance and all the bathroom fixtures.

With an array of checks from an astounding number
of accommodating neighbors, I found an agent of Cadillac who was happy to pay
me to drive across the country in their slick, boat-like car, upon which I
balanced two beautiful bicycles.

The experience will live forever in the minds of
my children and I doubt anyone could ever reproduce such an
event. I awakened my children at 3:00 am to see an extraordinary circumstance.
In Salt Lake City, the sky created an umbrella of falling stars
surrounding the available space with a spectacular show produced by the lack of
artificial lights. Pure magic, something my children would
never again witness.

The trip to California was a
bit of an illusion; something an intelligent person would refer to as a
fantasy, however, in 1976, all things seemed possible, including a home for my
children.

Nobody led the way and ended our traveling at the
northern-most corners of a place in Marin County. Somebody found a place to
stay and Everybody loved it. The really strange part of the process began the
following day. Nobody was able to cash the deposited checks, a rather positive
experience since all of the purchases including the rent were based on that transaction,
however, the checks could not be verified.

Since the bank was incapable of turning the
deposits into cash, the account was in effect frozen, an operational, and
strange effect of the deposited checks by persons who wrote them to me for the sale
of items that did not all belong to me.

It was becoming increasing clear that I was
about to become a criminal. Of what nature was unclear, but I suspected
Nobody would come to my aid and in the end I would require the assistance of
Somebody or in fact Anybody with a legal background. Further still, making the three
thousand mile trek seemed to cool the professed ardor of my intended, and he simply
disappeared leaving me free to wander for which I was grateful.

Finding a home for the clan proved to be a challenge. The home I chose to rent did not allow
children, so I lied and said I had none. We moved in, all seven of us, along
with our metaphysical recreations, three pillows and a coffee pot. The rent
would of course become an issue due to the freeze on the account, and I was
forced to sell the bicycles, my last hat trick.

In the meantime I found a waitress position,
which allowed me to steal food and toilet paper. Nobody objected,
and I continued to become a felon, a career objective that Somebody considered
difficult to comprehend, and a course of action perceived by Anybody as unwise.

While slicing turkey one day I recognized the
fact that Everybody was open to criminal behavior, and Nobody would protect
them from prosecution. With my first paycheck I reimbursed my employer and
begged to be forgiven. Nobody was, as usual, there for me and I was
fired. My landlord, an unwilling participant in an ongoing lawsuit against him
for allowing children to live in that complex, caved under the pressure and
forced me to leave. By the time I returned home on Christmas Eve, the children
were all sitting outside on the grass, the eldest held the coffee pot and a
string of tree lights.

If Somebody had an idea Nobody was discussing it
and if Everybody thought we were beaten by this we looked to Anybody with a
solution.

I decided to hide the children once again and
find a home, this time with no money at all, a delicate task, but not entirely
impossible. The kids and I were gathered at a gas station when it occurred to
me that the bank might finally have released the checks written for the stuff I
sold. And there it was, $3000.00.After renting a room at Howard Johnson for
showers, clean sheets, and television, we snuggled into a discussion of room
service. Somebody suggested that Everybody would benefit from a walk to the
nearest fast-food joint, an option Nobody found satisfactory. In the end, the
desire to eat actual food out-weighed all practical other-oriented
solutions.

Whatever happiness may be derived while raising
children, the joy of feeding them trumps all others; the prospect of not
feeding them is in fact the most deleterious.

Sitting in the booth of a fancy restaurant with
a serious claim to the best seafood in the world, my darlings ordered
hamburgers with cheese.

"We don't like fish," they proclaimed," especially fish with bones."

Somebody suggested lobster, a
fact Everybody agreed upon and Anybody could see that was the best choice.
Nobody, once again came to my aid.

"Lobster it is," I declared, and
lobster it was for our re-entry into the world of normalcy.

Albeit dinner blew a magnificent hole in our
funds it also produced a significant burst of energy and emotional well-being.
We found a very simple home; a small, fishy cottage, the kind some might
describe as "shack-like", available however to mothers with children.

By padding my resume with outrageous lies, I found a job, bought a car, and
joined other working moms dropping their kids off at the school bus stop.

In the end, it was a simple project; a task
devoted to the ordinary notion of keeping many children alive; an idea developed
while skirting them through negotiations with an atypical parent and the evolution
of an association with unrealistic and entirely imaginative personalities, all
willing to support their creative endeavors, specific ideations, and loving
pursuits. Through a prism of four decades past, I cannot see how it was done,
but can only recall the joy of raising six children on my own.

_____________________________________________________________________Rhonda Talbot on a fictional version of how I was raised for a short time; told through the eyes of my mother.